Current Affairs Quiz - April 2022

Notes:
The Centre through Agricultural and Processed Food Export Development Authority (APEDA) is facilitating trial shipments into new global markets for Indian niche G-I tagged agricultural products.
Bihar’s GI tagged Shahi Litchi was exported from Muzaffarpur district of Bihar to London last year. As on date, there are 417 registered GI products and of them, around 150 GI tagged products are agricultural and food products.

Notes:
The Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana launched digital platform ‘Fast and Secured Transmission of Electronic Records’ (FASTER).
The platform would be used by the court officials to instantly to send e-copies of the orders to intended parties, through a secured electronic communication channel. It covers all types of orders of the court.

Notes:
President Ram Nath Kovind recently awarded the ‘best state’ award at the National Water Awards 2022. Uttar Pradesh topped among all Indian states in terms of water conservation while Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu secured the second and third place, respectively.
Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Thiruvanathapuram in Kerala, East Champaran district of Bihar and Indore in Madhya Pradesh topped in the Best District Category for the north zone, south zone, east zone and west zone respectively.

Notes:
India has opened up its central government procurement market to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), under the recently-signed free trade agreement (FTA).
This step will give national treatment status to UAE companies, on a par with Indian companies, while bidding for central government tenders.

Notes:
The Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC is set to be admitted as the seventh member of the East African Community (EAC).
In the Extraordinary Heads of State Summit, DR Congo will be formally received in a virtual session. The DRC will gain access to the two main ports in the region-Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, also gaining trade, political and security cooperation. Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda are the other members.

Notes:
A report by the World Wildlife Fund showed that the illegal online trade of wildlife is growing in Myanmar, which is seen as a threat both to public health and to endangered species.
The report found that enforcement of bans on such transactions has weakened amid political crisis following a 2021 military takeover. Out of the 173 species traded, 54 are threatened with global extinction. The animals included elephants, bears and gibbons, Tibetan antelope, critically endangered pangolins and an Asian giant tortoise.

Notes:
Scientists from the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium have published the first complete human genome.
Researchers in 2003 released what was then claimed as the complete sequence of the human genome. But about 8% of it had not been fully deciphered. With this, more researches may be undertaken regarding disease-causing mutations.

Notes:
The Punjab Mandi Board has started sending ‘digital form J’ to the farmers from this Rabi procurement season
‘J form’ is the sale receipt of a farmer’s agricultural produce in mandis (grain market). These forms were earlier issued manually by the Commission agents. This move aims to bring transparency as well as empowering farmers and make Punjab the first state in the country to provide digitised form J in real time.

Notes:
The Ministry of Civil Aviation has launched International Air Connectivity Scheme (IACS) scheme (International UDAN) to enhance air connectivity from certain States of the country with selected international destinations.
The State Government of Assam, Manipur and Tripura have identified routes connecting Guwahati, Imphal and Agartala with selected international destinations.

Notes:
Afghanistan is the the world’s biggest opium producer, at present. Recently, the Taliban announced a ban on the cultivation of poppy in Afghanistan.
The production, use or transportation of other narcotics was also banned. As per the United Nations estimates, Afghanistan’s opium production was worth USD 1.4 billion in 2017. It has been continuously increasing in recent months.